Oh, My Hero! Blog Hop

Also, today's Jaycee DeLorenzo's and Victoria Smith's Oh, My Hero! Bloghop. The rules are here.

I'm doing two heroes because I couldn't decide. They're from my newest project, the untitled Bex Addison book (I'm really bad at coming up with titles). Basically, it's set ten years after scientists figure out how to bottle and sell magic. Once they discover how volatile it is, they ban it, which immediately makes it the hottest drug on the market. Bex is part of the Magical Law Enforcement Team, tasked with tracking down cartels and dangerous Burn-Outs and eliminating the threat.

My heroes today are her partner on the force, Adrian McCoy.

And the leader of her undercover operation, Greyson Westfield.

Tobi Summers: Hello, gentlemen. How are you today?
Adrian McCoy: Not too shabby. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and a little less magic is on the street thanks to us.
Greyson Westfield: Sure, what he said.

TS: Let's start with an easy one. How would you describe Bex?
AM: Hah! That's an easy one? I guess I'd say she's tough.
GW: Definitely tough. But she's multifaceted. Sometimes she can be... sweet.
AM: She'd kick your ass for suggesting that.
GW: Oh, absolutely. But she has her moments. She's the kind of woman who'll nurse you back to health after you take a bullet. Then she'll kill you for scaring her.

TS: I'm telling her you said that. So, next question: Do you believe in love at first sight?
Both [in unison]: No.
AM: I think there's lust at first sight, and maybe even a connection. But love, real love, takes time to grow. I met my wife almost 20 years before we got married. We had a spark, but it took both of us maturing and growing--both separately and together--before we really fell in love.
GW: How can you love someone before you ever even have a conversation?

TS: Good points, both of you. Now then, what's your favorite pastime? Besides work, that is.
GW: There's life outside of work?
AM: I was just thinking that. Alright, my favorite pastime is... being married.
GW: *fake gag* You're such a sap.
TS: Aw, cut him a break, Grey. It's only been six months. Plenty of time left for him to become disillusioned.
AM: Ha ha. You're both regular laugh riots.
TS: Grey?
GW: Well, I play football with the boys every once in awhile.
AM: Hey! You've never invited me to play football with you.
GW: Chill, man. I haven't played since we got back.
AM: Oh.
TS: Anything else?
GW: *shrug* Sometimes I draw too.

TS: What your favorite movie?
AM: True Grit. The original one, with John Wayne.
GW: Surprise, surprise.
AM: Hey, I know quality. What's yours?
GW: I don't watch movies.
AM: That's such bull. I've watched movies with you!
GW: Alright, alright. I like The Usual Suspects.
AM: Don't lie; you have a thing for French cinema.
GW: I told you that in confidence!

TS: Alright, last question. What is the first thing you notice about a woman that you find attractive?
AM: Eyes. Haha, Grey's got pretty eyes. *pinches GW's cheek*
GW: *swats hand* You're such a weirdo. I notice... I don't know. A woman has to be special to catch my attention. She's got to have... she has to have the It factor. I like a good rack or a nice ass as much as the next guy, but it's more than that. Deeper.
TS: *tearing up* I'm going to tell Bex you said that too.
AM: And this is why it's so obvious that you like French cinema.

Q is for Quinn

Lucky I picked a "Q" name for Cap's MC, huh? That showed wonderful foresight on my part.

Quinn Dunlap is a 25-year-old werewolf from the Capitoline Hill Chronicles. She's evolved a lot since I first thought of her. Originally, she was a slacker, middle-of-the-pack wolf with no aspirations of anything bigger. It took me a long time to realize that what I thought was her being a slacker was actually insecurity... and that was even worse. I've never written a character who comes across as meek and mild as Quinn does. Normally my heroines are loud, take-no-prisoners women, who always speak their mind and and kick ass and take names.

That's not to say Quinn isn't tough, but she's tough in a more subtle way, which I've never written before. She's the kind of girl who gets overlooked sometimes, especially consider her brothers and sister are all much more outgoing than she is. She's flawed in a lot of ways, but she steps up when she's needed, and she's got an inner strength she doesn't realize.

It's been an interesting ride, writing a MC like Quinn. I think she's making me a better writer, but there are some times when I really thought about strangling her. She just doesn't have a lot of confidence in herself. But I know things about her future, and I know that she should be more confident in herself. So we've had some... disagreements.

I interviewed her once for the I'm Hearing Voices! Character Blogfest back in February, so this is a follow-up interview. Having planned the next three books in her series now, I think she might have some more answers for us (though this interview still takes place at the beginning of the book).

1. What do you do for a living?

   Until a couple months ago, I worked in Human Resources for an investment company in north Jersey, but now I'm a Guardian for the Mid-Atlantic Werewolf Pack.

2. Are any other people living with you? Who are they?

   Hah! At any given time, I live with between 15 and 40 other people. There are five houses on Capitoline Hill. In my family's house, it's me, my parents, my brother Carson, my sister Aly, and the triplets. My cousins live in one of the other houses, along with my best friend and the other bitten wolves, and our Alpha and his family live in one. The Dansens live in the fourth, and the fifth one is empty right now.

3. Tell me about your parents. How well do/did you get along with them?

   I think my parents and I were closer when I was little. I was kind of a daddy's girl, but we grew apart as I got older. He's more interested in helping Carson become Pack Alpha someday. My mom is... a typical mom. Nothing bad, nothing special.

4. What was your birth order? How many siblings did you have? Older? Younger?

   I guess technically I'm the second-oldest. Multiple births are pretty common among werewolves, and I'm a quadruplet. Carson's older than I am, and Liam and Aly are younger. And then the triplets are ten.

5. What makes you happy?

   Hanging out with my friends. Going for a run. Catching a deer with my Packmates. The simple things.

6. What is your greatest fear?

   Snakes. No, just kidding. I wish snakes were my greatest fear. Um, I guess disappointing people. I don't want to let anyone down.

7. What would you change about yourself if you could?

   Do you have an hour? ... I think I'd like to be more decisive. And braver. Definitely braver.

CH is the first book I've ever written from one POV (though in the second draft I expanded it to include some chapters from a second POV). I think, as a result, I'm more invested in Quinn than any other character I've written. She's the driving force behind this series, my answer to characters like Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson or Devon Monk's Allie Beckstrom or Kelley Armstrong's Elena Michaels. But at the same time, I didn't want her to be a cliche. I think, if nothing else, I succeeded with that, but only time will tell, I suppose.

An Emotion for All Seasons

Alright, it's the last day of the I'm Hearing Voices blogfest, and today's theme is Emotion. I realized that throughout Rosetta I'd written Quinn as scared, nervous, concerned, depressed, drunk, tired, worried and contemplative, but I'd never written her as simply happy or content. Today I figured out why: because she's neurotic, and she worries about everything. It took three drafts for me to find a situation where she might not be worried about something for a few minutes. So hopefully you'll all enjoy this.

Trick lounged on the old, squishy couch in flannel pants and a worn T-shirt that may or may not have been his. Ben and Lucy were squabbling for space on the loveseat, while I put in the movie.

“What are we watching?” Ben asked as he pinned Lucy’s arms and slid back to take up as much room as possible. She elbowed him in the stomach, eliciting a groan. They’d wind up sharing the loveseat; they always did.

“A true gem this time,” I began, but Lucy cut me off.

“Not like Lobster Tale, right?”

“Ah… no,” I agreed. “That was a mistake. But this movie comes highly recommended by my best bad movie expert at the video store,” I rushed on. “It’s called Santa Claus Defeats the Aliens.”

They all stared at me incredulously. “That’s a real thing?” Ben demanded.

I grinned. “Prepare to be amazed.”

I hit the play button on the remote and the song that began to play over the title credits made us all laugh. I lifted Trick’s legs and settled onto the couch, draping his feet over my lap, the position as familiar to me as Lucy and Ben’s bickering. Ben threw popcorn at the screen when it got to be too bad, and Lucy and Trick took turns heckling him for his rotten aim. I propped stockinged feet on the coffee table and let my friends’ laughter wash away the hellish week.

Both those movies really exist. I watch Santa Claus every Christmas. It is a truly fantastic bad movie.

Also, keep an eye out for some changes to my blog this weekend (maybe... hopefully...). More on that in the next day or so.

Have a good weekend!

When Alec Met Quinn...

Thank you for all the great feedback from Quinn on the Couch! I really appreciate all your kind words.

And we're off to the races for the Dialogue Introduction portion of the I'm Hearing Voices blogfest. I decided to go back in time to when Quinn first met Alec. This takes place about ten years before the start of Rosetta and a lot happened in that time, so the Quinn you see here should be a little different from the Quinn who was on the couch on Monday (or, you know, the Quinn who actually shows up in Rosetta).

Without further ado: When Alec Met Quinn...

“Hi. I’m Alec.”

“Ah! Shit... uh, I mean crap… I mean, uh, sorry. Hi.”

“Are you… alright?”

“Yeah. Sorry. I, um, drop things a lot.”

“Well, that’s okay. I like to pick things up.”

“Hah! That was either the worst pickup line ever, or—”

“Actually, it was just a crappy comeback. I was… I’m not really… that good at meeting people.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“No, it’s no problem.”

“So… Alec?”

“Yeah. Alec Hannigan. I’m… new, I guess.”

“A bitten wolf?”

“Yeah. Geoffrey just brought me here.”

“How long ago were you bitten?”

“Three weeks ago. Geoffrey found me right after and took me to a safe house until I… stopped trying to eat him.”

“Oh. Well, that’s… good.”

“So, uh, who’re you?”

“Right. Sorry. I’m Quinn. Dunlap. I was born a werewolf. Lived here my whole life.”

“All… seventeen years?”

“Hah! Good try. I’m fifteen. And I don’t look any older, so don’t bother lying to me.”

“You do! I thought you were at least my age.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I did! Why would I lie about that?”

“Because you’re trying to impress me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know! Because you’re a 17-year-old boy, and that’s what boys do.”

“Maybe I’m not like other boys.”

“Yeah, right. Maybe you’re just like other boys. But I’ll give you a chance to make it up to me.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Sure. I need someone to help me put these spiders in Carson’s bed anyway.”

Quinn on the Couch

OK, here goes. I need to get to know no character more than Quinn, my MC for Rosetta, so let's see what she has to say to these questions from the I'm Hearing Voices! Character Blogfest:

1. What is your biggest vulnerability? Do others know this or is it a secret?
   

   Oh, God, everything. I'm a lousy fighter, I'm too emotional, and I have a tendency to, you know, panic in the middle of a battle. And that's definitely not a secret. I wish it was, but, yeah.

2. What do people believe about you that is false?
   

   I guess people think that because I don't complain, I'm okay with everything that they do. I've just never seen the point in confronting every issue head on. But that doesn't mean I like what they're doing.

3. What would your best friend say is your fatal flaw? Why?
   

   She'd probably say that it's that I give people too many chances, and I don't learn from my mistakes. I guess that's true. I have trouble holding a grudge sometimes, and I want to trust people even though I've been burned before.

4. What would the same friend say is your one redeeming quality? Why?
   

   *laughs* Okay, let's be clear here. Her opinion and mine are very different on this subject. She'd say that my ability to approach any situation logically is my biggest redeeming quality. Which is all well and good when you have the time to sit there and make a pro-con list, but it doesn't help much in the heat of a fight, when you need to make decisions off the cuff.

5. What do you want most? What will you do to get it?
   

   Honestly? Not much. I want my brother and sister to come back to the Pack. I want to stop panicking every time I get pinned in a fight, and I want to stop feeling helpless all the time. And the only way I can think of to get is to become the best damn Pack Guardian and train until all that fear is gone.

Well. That was considerably more difficult than I expected it to be (not what I'd like to think after conversing with the main character of a novel I just spent seven months writing). Clearly, I have quite a bit more to learn about Quinn.

I'm Hearing Voices

Yeah, it's a little bit short notice, but I didn't go back far enough when I started following Cassie's blog, so I just found out about it. But it looks like fun, and definitely a good character exercise. Good luck to anyone entering!

A Rose By Any Other Name

Kim and I were having a conversation about character names, when I had the thought that this might be an interesting blog post. Which I told Kim. And for some reason she's still willing to have conversations with me.

I love coming up with names for my characters. In fact, it may be my favorite part of writing. I really enjoy the way the right name combination feels when you say it out loud. I like that click you get when you have the perfect first and last name combination, like Harry Potter or Nicholas Nickleby or Ramona Quimby. Sometimes I agonize over the perfect name for a character, going to baby name generators to get just the right meaning, playing with the sound of it until I'm positive--positive--it's the right one.

And sometimes I wing it.

I changed Quinn's name three times when I was starting Rosetta. In fact, for half the first chapter she was Bailey, and in the plot summary, she's still Becky. I then had to consciously stop myself from changing it again (this time to Dakota) when I was a few chapters in. I don't know why I had so much trouble, but nothing ever felt right. I'd been reading all these urban fantasy series where the main characters had really excellent names (Rachel Vincent's Faythe and Liv, Patricia Briggs' Mercy, Carrie Vaughn's Kitty), and I kept feeling like my MC couldn't live up to it. Eventually she settled into the name Quinn, and I grew to like it, but it was a rough road there.

Sometimes a name just comes naturally. In my first novel, three of the four characters' names flew from my mind to the page with no effort. I thought them, and they were perfect. I find this happens a lot more often with minor characters though, whose names matter a little less.

And sometimes a character will develop around a name. In Rosetta, one of Quinn's friends is a guy named Trick. With a name like that, how the character be anything but a bit of a joker? Sure, he can get serious when he needs to, but he's mostly just a light-hearted, fun guy.

I'm thinking about this a lot now, since I'm just beginning Defenders. The naming process has been slightly more difficult for this book because, for some reason, I have a lot more trouble with girls' names than boys'. In Rosetta, Quinn's world is split fairly evenly between males and females, maybe a little heavier on the male side. If that's so, it's because I love coming up with names for boys. But Defenders follows a group of six girls, who interact primarily with other girls, at least until book 3. Sure, there are some scattered guys there, but not enough to use up the well of names I have stored.

And now that I've basically turned this into an ode to names, I turn it over to you. Have you ever heard a name that's really stood out to you (something you've written or someone else has)? Are there names you absolutely can't stand? Do your feelings about a name influence the character you create? Personally, I don't like the name John, so any Johns in my story are usually boring guys. And once I found out Donovan meant Dark One (or something like that), it became my fall-back name for every bad guy I wrote. Do you have names like that?

Expectations

I'm currently in the process of writing chapter 8 of Rosetta, the chapter which will introduce Eli, a 24-year-old werewolf who will become quite important throughout the rest of the book and future ones. Eli was probably the second or third character I created, and the first one I had actual expectations for. I know what I want him to do by the end of the book, and while a whole host of other things need to fall into place to make it work, the thing that frightens me most is the Eli won't be the character I need him to be to make those things happen.

This happened to me once before. I started a novel with the intention of the main character getting together with this one guy. And when I got to the part of the outline where they were supposed to get together... nothing. No sparks, no chemistry, no conceivable reason why these two people would ever see each other in a romantic light. He was her sons' principal; she was his students' mother. Nothing more, nothing less.

Instead of rolling with it and changing the plan, I panicked and shut down. This was the concept I'd built my whole story around. If it wasn't going to work, what point was there in continuing it?

I'd like to think I've grown from this, and that I can readjust if Eli is not ready to do what I need him to do at the end of the book. I'd like to think I'm a better writer now than I was when I was 18. And I'd like to think I'm more flexible now. But the problem with having expectations for a character is that then they have the potential to disappoint you.